Area: Gahanna
Howdy howdy!
Quite the week for learning! This whole week has been one thing after another just trying to learn the lessons that God has for me this transfer. Well last Monday we got to finish the night up at Brother Poole's house for "Family Home Evening". I guess it's usually a pretty big thing but literally almost no one showed up! But it was a good night.
On Tuesday it all started out pretty normal. A good planning session and out the door by ten. We had to stay close to the apartment because we were waiting for Elder Allison to call us to drop off a mattress because for the last week I had been sleeping on a cot. A broken cot... Haha! So we went and knocked a bunch of doors just down the road by the library. The first door we knocked this guy answered who looked about twenty and he seemed super solid. We taught him the restoration and all was well. Later on down the road his mom came and got mad, I guess he said yes out of fear. That was too bad. After we hit every door in those apartments we headed over to the library. We got some frozen hot chocolate which was super good! Elder Allison finally called right before lunch so we headed home and got the bed right before we grilled out! We have a pretty nice grill so we made some good 'ol hamburgers. We decided to get creative and put Mac n cheese and eggs on them! What a treat! Haha! After lunch and comp study we decided to go street ball contacting. So we drove over to an outdoor court and saw a few guys playing ball. So we started playing them and beat them the first two games. We started to teach them after the second and it was going well. They asked if we would play one more so of course we were like, "yeah!". As we were getting out on the court I decided to go 1v1 with Elder Cichoski. I crossed him up so hard we were positive I literally broke his Ankles! We thought it was broken so we went to three different places until we finally found a place that had an x-ray tech on the job! Turns out it isn't broken. Alright alright fine. I didn't actually cross him up. But the rest of that was true. Up until the point we went one on one. He was just trying to dunk it and he landed on the edge of the court that was like a two inch edge. He dropped pretty hard too. He thought he had broken it because he'd broke that exact ankle in the past! After getting the other guys info we ran to get him back to the car. He, no joke, passed out on the way back to the car!!! Elder Kamerath was carrying him in his arms when he dropped so that was convenient! But a couple urgent care visits were fun. They x-rayed him and told him it was just a sprain. So we celebrated with Canes Chicken and that was the rest of the night!
Wednesday we had district council in the morning! The doctor had given Elder Cichoski crutches and told him to stay off it for a few days. At district council we had to give our car up. District council was pretty good! We have ten Elders in the district! After district council we got canes again... Then we gave our car up. To be honest this whole week got wrecked because we have no car, and a companion down. It was pretty rough and definitely not as fast paced as I'm used to and how I wanted my last transfer to go... But there's a lesson in every aspect of life! So the rest of the day we just tried to stay productive and eventually we got so stir crazy in the apartment that we ended up having Shane pick us up so we could get better wifi!
Thursday was a huge blessing! We had exchanges with the zone leaders, Elder Blake and Elder Hunter! I got to go with Elder Hunter! He's a stud from Idaho. We had a blast! We ended up getting to do some service! We started out weeding Shane's flower beds. Then cleaning some of his gutters and trimming some bushes but we got tired of doing small things so we decided to ask if he had any big projects! So he sent us to his neighbors. Boy was that a project! They were gutting a house and they hadn't started at all. They are going to turn it into a garage! That night we biked past the airport going to an apartment complex, we literally watched 3 planes take off and land! Airports are a lot bigger on a bike! That day was sweet! We found three new people! I found a mini guitar in that house, and a Frisbee disc on the side of a very busy road! What a blessing!
Friday was a follow up day, Elder Kamerath and I went back to that house and did some demo. We punched about four holes in the walls then we took a sledge hammer to them! It was sweet! We also ripped a bunch of carpet up. But after that we weekly planed, and had a good few lessons and even found a couple more people!
Saturday we found a couple more people. Sadly, we didn't get out as much as I wanted because Elder Cichoski is still in a lot of pain. But God still provides and we found a couple more people! It was awesome! We also went to a members 1 year old's bday party! There was a ton of non members and we had a lot of good gospel centered conversations! It was a great day!
Sunday was sweet! We had three people at church and we had an incredible sacrament meeting thanks to the Giacalones! They were definitely the big hitters! Their talks were super deep and a lot about how when we do God's will, the hard things are soon recognized as learning experiences. "In the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and in God's eyes, there are no such things as tragedies."
After Church we had a great lesson with a busy guy named Matt at a Duncan Donuts. The lesson was awesome, we talked about the book of Mormon and afterwards he just texted us and told us how happy he was, and how he was going to dig into the book of Mormon. It was awesome! So hopefully you'll hear about him in the future! After that we grilled out at Shane's house and had come follow me. I love the Sabbath!
Well, I love you all! I hope you have a great week!
Love Elder Smoot!
